playable advent mod: details, feedback

[davidlallen]

I like the idea of causing panic. I'll have to check if the enemy has useful "will" stats, because I could easily see that mutons and andromedons might not be too nervous, but advent troopers sure would be.

 

In some sense, the chryssalid burrow is a trap itself. I would like to set it up so that they can do a full move and burrow without breaking concealment, sort of like a prox mine. But, the unit has to work in support of our existing missions, which rarely involve defending, only attacking.

 

Maybe "ambush" and "fear" as the two branches? Both can have increases to damage and mobility.

[Lucubration]

I really like that take on Chryssalids, very different from the pure berserker suicide bugs one might expect, but still very thematic.

 

I wonder if you could work burrow traps like Overwatch within a radius, and take a charge attack on the enemy's turn if they move inside that area.

[hunterkiller33]

Does anyone have a list of the perks, status effects and item effects in the code? Trying to make some of the abilities listed, and I can't find what lets the medkit remove poison, acid and fire from the target and the actual name for the Andromodon's acid blob ability. I'm too new to this game's code.

[davidlallen]

Actually, burrowing already appears to work like overwatch, but I have not explored quite enough yet. Without any mod, on a mission against chryssalids, try a little save game scumming. Save at the start of a turn; move up your soldiers until you see chryssalids un-burrowing; note where the burrows were; reload; move up carefully just near the burrow. I am pretty sure you will see that it is an overwatch type attack. I may be wrong; possibly your soldier moves up on top of the burrow or just nearby, and then gets surprise attacked by an unburrowing chryssalid during its own turn. But the code in X2Ability_Chryssalid.uc certainly reads like a free surprise attack.

 

The problem with the burrow mechanic for players (as I mentioned above) is that it's hard to fit into a typical xcom2 mission where you have to cover a lot of distance each turn. We are never required to defend and hold territory. Even the protect a device missions involve a lot of running.

[davidlallen]

 

 

Does anyone have a list of the perks, status effects and item effects in the code?

 

For soldier abilities, there is this, which is linked in the pinned resource thread:

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/3843350-soldiers-abilites-list/

 

For alien abilities, each alien has X2Ability_<alien name>.uc which defines all the abilities. For the medkit, actually this is already done in the "molt" effect of this mod, contributed by Lucubration; see PA_ViperAbilities.uc and PA_MoltCondition.uc. For items, see a file something like X2_ItemGrantedAbilitySet.uc (don't have the files here.)

 

I'm not aware of any other documentation, but if somebody wanted to write one based on what they have found, that would be great.

[hunterkiller33]

I really like that take on Chryssalids, very different from the pure berserker suicide bugs one might expect, but still very thematic.

 

I wonder if you could work burrow traps like Overwatch within a radius, and take a charge attack on the enemy's turn if they move inside that area.

I thought that came default on them when they are enemies. I have on more then one occasion been charged and attacked in the middle of my turn by burrowed bugs

[Lucubration]

Actually, burrowing already appears to work like overwatch, but I have not explored quite enough yet. Without any mod, on a mission against chryssalids, try a little save game scumming. Save at the start of a turn; move up your soldiers until you see chryssalids un-burrowing; note where the burrows were; reload; move up carefully just near the burrow. I am pretty sure you will see that it is an overwatch type attack. I may be wrong; possibly your soldier moves up on top of the burrow or just nearby, and then gets surprise attacked by an unburrowing chryssalid during its own turn. But the code in X2Ability_Chryssalid.uc certainly reads like a free surprise attack.

 

The problem with the burrow mechanic for players (as I mentioned above) is that it's hard to fit into a typical xcom2 mission where you have to cover a lot of distance each turn. We are never required to defend and hold territory. Even the protect a device missions involve a lot of running.

 

Oh. I guess I never got that close to their burrows on my turn; I always just slowly moved forward and Overwatch camped those terror missions.

 

Hmm... perhaps make it a MoveEnd ability that lets them dash and burrow without breaking concealment.

[davidlallen]

Right, like run and gun only it can only be used for burrowing. I am having an implementation problem right now with breaking concealment; if I can't figure it out I may post the details here. It isn't obvious how to change the burrow action from hostile to neutral. The template refers to non-static helper functions in the class, and I can't figure out how to refer to them from my own class.

[skymaster800]

Hey quick question if you guys are going to add Sectopods, Gatekeepers, and possibly Avatars. How would they be balanced out for the player? I think they should be weeker than the AI variants but that is just me.

[davidlallen]

For avatar, I recommend this mod; we probably won't duplicate it:

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom2/mods/473/

 

For sectopod and gatekeeper, I agree that balancing such powerful units would be a challenge. What is a "rookie sectopod"? The biggest problem with adding these two (literally "biggest") is that they don't at all fit into the skyranger scene or the other scenes like mission assignment. The mec is already too big to fit, and these two would be way worse.

 

I think we may add the andromedon, maybe berserker, maybe sectoid. But it is getting harder to find interesting tactical roles for all these races to play.